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Compare and Contrast: Linux and Apple

Posted by Hemos on from the cha-cha-cha-changes dept.

egwene wrote to us with the latest Salon Linux piece regarding Apple and Linux and the passing of the advocacy torch. The article gets into some of the...intense feelings our compatriots have for their operating system.

2 of 205 comments (clear)

  1. Re:sacred mystical computers? utter BS by Arkham · · Score: 5
    1) If a mac isn't doing what you expect then it gives you NO debugging information to "figure out what's wrong with it" - trust me.. I work on a help desk. How do you ping something from a mac? erm. there's a COMMERCIAL PACKAGE that can do it.. sheesh. So if it says "can't connect to mail host smtp.foo.com" I have no idea if it's a DNS problem or a TCP problem or an IP problem, and I'm trying to work this out through some 'kwit down the phone who bought a mac fooled into thinking it would be easy to use.


    Well, there are several dozen freeware and shareware tools to do this as well. I personally use IPNetMonitor and WhatRoute. With MacOS X, there will be a BSD layer underneath that you can force your users to use if you didn't give them the tools they needed to start with. I've been using Macs for 11 years, and I have two friends who do Mac consulting for a living. They don't seem to have these problems. Seems to me the failing is not with Apple, but with your techs or your company.


    The mostly monochrome desktop is far from "elegant" and the interface is too damn illogical


    You're certainly entitled to your opinion, but most people would disagree with you. Believe it or not, Enlightenment with an undulating background and neon translucent windows is not what most people would consider an intuitive interface. The Mac GUI follows a simple set of rules that is consisitent between applications and the Finder. Windows hasn't even gotten this one down yet, let alone Linux.



    how much you configure FVWM to do what you want (you mean you can actually define your OWN button menus? wow!).


    That's just it -- the average user doesn't want to reconfigure their menus. They don't want the menus to vary from computer to computer doing the same tasks either. They want all the things that they need access to already be there for them in a logical fashion.


    Sounds to me like the article was written by a mac advocate trying to get linux users to use macs.


    As a Mac advocate (and a Linux advocate too), I have to disagree. If anything, this article was balanced, leaning towards Linux. Then again, I'm an advocate, not a zealot.


    If Apple shipped a complete development environment with their OS and stopped sueing people I might consider it.


    Well for one thing, the average user doesn't care about devlopment tools. It's just a bunch of useless, scary stuff that they will not be able to use. It does not belong in the distribution of a consumer OS.


    Also, with Apple's server OS, MacOS X Server, Apple does ship a complete set of GNU compilers, linkers, etc. They also include the soure code for the Darwin kernel if you want to look at it.


    Finally, as to Apple suing people, what does that have to do with you? They are just protecting their hard work and technology. Whether you agree with their legal proceedings should not be relevant to your thoughts on the relative merits of the OS. This is just some Apple-bashing you threw in at the end, but it exposes your true character and opinion better than the rest of your message.

    --
    - Vincit qui patitur.
  2. It's about the fun. by meepzorb · · Score: 5

    Professionally, I am primarily a UNIX and VxWorks developer (I have a Linux box on my desk which I use for prototyping) and sysadmin who has used far too many flavors of unix to remain normal. I've also done quite a bit of Macintosh programming.

    At home, I have both an iMac and a linux laptop to play with. Guess which one is used more? The iMac. And no I am not dumbing down off-hours... I do most of my home coding projects on the Mac these days. The Mac is just more fun to use, and when it's MY OWN time, the fun is really all that matters.

    Is Linux "fun to use"? Yes. As a challenging and powerful environment to keep one's unix chops up to snuff. It's also the most pleasant of all the unices I've seen or used over the years.

    Is the Macintosh "fun to use"? Also yes. As a tool that hardly ever gets between me and whatever it is I am trying to do.

    I guess what I am trying to say is that linux is fun in the sense that, say, Rubik's Cube or a challenging puzzle is fun. My Mac is fun in the sense that my guitars are fun. There is plenty of room in my life for both.

    I have as much "unix cred" as almost anyone, and I still have nothing but respect for the general design of the MacOS. It bothers me when (as happens all too often) I hear perfectly competent and intelligent linux advocates flaming MacOS by reflex.

    I'm not really sure why it has to be one or the other. Why not both?

    :Michael